Andy Carver
Andrew "Andy" Carver initially introduced himself to the residents of Coronation Street posing as Michael Rodwell's son Gavin. Despite his original deception, he formed a close bond with Michael - especially following the real Gavin's death - and also began dating Steph Britton, who was Andy's colleague at the Bistro he began working at. By then, Andy became best-friends with Steph's brother Luke. Towards the end of 2016, Andy was devastated when Michael died of a heart attack and guessed correctly that his enemy Pat Phelan was responsible - which subsequently resulted in Andy seeking to avenge his surrogate father's death by attacking Phelan. However, Phelan survived and Andy was consequently subjugated to weeks of blackmail as a result. On the day Phelan was due to marry Michael's ex-girlfriend Eileen Grimshaw in January 2017, Andy attempted to take him down a second time; however, he fails and was brutally attacked by Phelan - who apparently kills Andy before proceeding to marry Eileen. It is soon revealed in August 2017 that Andy had survived Phelan's attack, but was consequently locked up in the basement of Phelan's derelict house for months - as Phelan was unable to go through with killing him. After spending nearly a year in the cellar and being subjugated to Phelan's torture, including two failed opportunities to escape his tormentor's clutches, Andy appeared to have earned his freedom when he was forced to kill Phelan's ex-business partner Vinny Ashford. Unfortunately, Phelan ended up shooting Andy dead afterwards - as Phelan couldn't risk letting Andy go and reporting his ordeal to anyone else. Biography 2014-2015: Posing as Gavin In November 2014 he went to meet Michael at Just Nick's. The meeting didn't go according to plan and Andy left, however he later contacted Michael and asked to meet the next day. Later that month he attempted to contact the real Gavin after finding out that Michael suffered from a heart condition, which was confirmed to be hereditary. He continued to build a bond with Michael and was immediately hired by Nick Tilsley at the bistro when he learned that Andy was an experienced waiter, although Andy seemed to show signs of uneasiness at his deceit and attempted to contact the real Gavin on several occasions. He also met co-worker Steph Britton there. On New Year's Eve after Leanne Tilsley was reinstated as bistro manager, she asked him for references, national insurance number and bank details which caused him to panic out of fear of being exposed. However he managed to get hold of Gavin's national insurance details, and made up the story that he didn't have access to his bank account because of an incident of hacking. On New Year's Day, he kissed Steph. In January 2015, a guilt-ridden Andy confessed to Steph about his deceit in the aftermath of Michael suffering another shock collapse. He admitted that he was a flatmate of the real Gavin Rodwell, and after Gavin had fled with his girlfriend Andy visited Michael as part of a prank, but felt bad when he realised Michael was genuinely sorry for not being in the real Gavin's life. He agreed to tell Michael everything, but he and Steph decided not to after they found out that Michael required open heart surgery, and that the shock would most likely kill him. returns.|200px]] In March, Andy was shocked when he found out from Steph that the real Gavin Rodwell was back from Thailand. When Andy went to see Gavin at the flat, Gavin began questioning him about why he had received pay slips from Nick's Bistro and questioned him over a letter written by Michael. Defeated, Andy revealed he was using Gavin's identity, and tried to insist that Michael was a changed man and regretted abandoning his son. Gavin wasn't so sympathetic however, and threatened to expose Andy's lies. Later that evening when Andy and Steph were at the Rovers along with Michael and his fiancée Gail McIntyre, Gavin turned up and said that he would remain silent on the condition that Andy paid him £5,000. However, in the following days, Gavin died in a car accident. Gail, Steph and Andy were shocked. Gail attended Gavin's funeral and met his mother, Susan Meldrum. The following month, Gail suspiciously started buying flowers for Gavin's grave but David followed her one day and found out the truth. Meanwhile, evil drug-dealer Callum Logan was trying to gain custody of his son Max Turner (who was living with stepfather David). On Gavin's birthday, David blackmailed Andy into helping him get Callum arrested. He made him buy drugs in The Swarbrick Arms and he then drove to The Dog & Gun and forced Andy to plant drugs in Callum's car. However Callum, along with his mates Gemma Winter and Macca, returned to the car and found Andy. They held him hostage in the pub's back room and threatened to beat him up. As Callum was about to attack Andy, he said that he would tell him everything. At that moment David walked in. After an argument, Callum released Andy but kidnapped David and beat him up. Andy returned to Gavin's birthday party late and told a shocked Steph about everything that happened. David was subsequently released by Callum and returned to Coronation Street, but had suffered a beating by his hands first. Andy's deceit was unveiled in June when Gavin's mother Susan Meldrum sent an album to Michael with pictures of Gavin. Andy awkwardly sat next to Michael as he looked through the photographs, but in later childhood images, it became clear that Andy wasn't Gavin. Michael was angry, even more so at Gail for not telling him and Michael subsequently walked out on Gail. Andy's crime was soon forgotten, as nobody reported him and he continued working at the Bistro as Nick saw him a good employee and didn't want to lose him. Andy began to slowly patch things up with Michael, who later moved in with him and Steph at 19a Victoria Street. Despite Michael settling things with Andy, he wasn't interested in reconciling things with Gail and instead got together with Gail's enemy Eileen Grimshaw. 2016-2017: Conflict with Pat Phelan Michael left in March 2016 after Eileen decided to end their relationship and got together with Pat Phelan, a builder who Michael didn't trust. Michael's feud with Phelan ended up driving a wedge between the couple, which resulted in Eileen dumping Michael. Michael attempted to get back with Gail; however, she seemed to show disinterest in getting back with him - which subsequently led to him leaving for Brighton with his ice cream van. Andy broke the news to Gail that Michael had left, much to her disappointment. After Andy and Steph's landlord Jason Grimshaw left for Thailand in June, Phelan began to run the day-to-day operations of Jason's Construction. Phelan made a suggestion to Eileen that she should raise Andy and Steph's rent, which she agreed to whilst the pair weren't happy - up to the point when they quickly struggled to have their rent sorted out. When Michael made an unexpected return in July after several months away, he offered to move in with them to help with the rent, much to Phelan's annoyance. In November 2016, Andy was devastated when Michael dies of a heart attack and quickly suspects that Phelan was responsible. When Andy confronts Phelan about his theory on the day of Michael's funeral, Phelan tricks him into thinking otherwise. Andy initially believes Phelan, until the next month when he overhears Luke telling his co-worker Tyrone Dobbs about their boss Kevin Webster confronting Phelan over Michael's death. Driven to vengeance and seeking to avenge his surrogate father's death, Andy later snuck behind Phelan as the builder was locking up the yard and attacked him with a brick - knocking him unconscious and seemingly killing him. However, Phelan survived when Steph found him and phoned an abundance. Phelan later invited Steph and Andy over to his bedside to thank the pair for saving his life. However, when Andy was left alone with Phelan, the builder makes it clear that he knows Andy attacked him and threatens to report him to the police - unless Andy were to do things that Phelan tells him to do. Consequently, Andy was subjugated to Phelan' blackmail for the rest of 2016 and for the majority of January 2017 - which strained his relationship with Steph in the process of his behaviour. Eventually, Andy confessed everything to Steph and they later planned on leaving Weatherfield for a new life together in Portugal - after Andy told Steph that Phelan threatened him with her life too. On the day Phelan was due to marry Eileen, Andy had taken possession of Kevin's laptop - which incriminated evidence of Phelan talking to his would-be stepson Todd about his Calcutta Street flats scam development. Seeking a last-ditch attempt to bring Phelan down and avenge Michael's death, Andy told Steph to go out without him and he planned on taking the laptop to the police - only for Phelan to visit him at the flat moments later. With Andy leaving the laptop in open when answering Phelan's knock of the door, Phelan quickly realized what Andy was planning to do and confronts him about it. As Phelan sat down to survey the footage, Andy sneakily turned on the record on his mobile phone and attempted to get Phelan to confess to his role in Michael's death. Their conversation quickly caused Phelan to deduce Andy's trick and he brutally removes the phone from his pocket, before ordering him to destroy the laptop - which Andy agreed to out of fear. Phelan - still in possession of Andy's phone - looked through photos of Steph, before stumbling across photos of Michael. Phelan proceeded to mock Michael, which angered Andy so much that he took the laptop and hit Phelan over the head. Phelan stumbled to the ground and was seemingly unconscious, prompting Andy to make a desperate attempt to escape. However, Phelan caught him off caught and they fought. In the ensuing confrontation, Andy briefly pinned Phelan down before the latter ultimately turned the tables. Phelan then grabbed the laptop and, after mocking Andy's previous remark on how the "bad guy always gets his comeuppance" by telling him that he "just thought of a new ending", proceeded to beat him over the head with the laptop. Whether or not Phelan had intended to kill Andy, he had survived the attack. Rather than finish the job, Phelan loaded him into a van and took him to an abandoned old house - in which he chained Andy up in the cellar. By then, Steph had left Weatherfield for Portugal on her own, as she had thought Andy left her after receiving a text from his phone - sent by Phelan - claiming she was better off without him. 2017: Abduction ordeal and murder Andy was kept in the basement for months, with Phelan secretly visiting him and providing him with painkillers and food. Although Andy became dependent on Phelan for company, he attempted to fight for his freedom on several occasions. In June 2017, Phelan had sported a black eye, which was presumably caused by Andy. In August, Phelan paid Andy a visit and chatted with him - lamenting on whether or not he could change his ways after recently discovering he had a daughter named Nicola Rubinstein. The following day, Andy unsuccessfully tried to strangle Phelan - who ended up fighting back and furiously confiscated his mattress upon discovering he'd used a piece of it in his latest attempt to kill him. Phelan later discovered Andy had stashed a note inside the mattress begging for help. With his patience running out, Phelan returned to the basement and informed Andy that he wouldn't be returning for quite a while - leaving him alone for several days. Upon Phelan's next visit, Andy sported a nasty injury on his arm which had become infected - causing him a great deal of pain. Phelan left him alone once again, but eventually decided to save Andy by getting him some antibiotics. When Eileen nearly discovered Andy's captivity upon visiting Phelan, Andy helped cover-up the secret by keeping quiet whilst Phelan stalled his wife. In gratitude, Phelan tells Andy that he will be setting him free. Phelan planned for Andy to leave Weatherfield to start anew in France. On their way to the airport, however, Phelan crashed his van in the woods and Andy managed to escape; he briefly checked on Phelan and initially phoned an ambulance for him, but decided to make a break for it. Just as it appeared that he'd finally escaped his tormentor's clutches, however, Andy was caught by Phelan - who revealed that he actually staged a test to determine whether Andy would prove his loyalty, and he failed. After falsely helping him up, Phelan knocked out Andy and recaptured him back to the basement - much to Andy's anguish. A month later, Andy desperately made a proposition with Phelan; he would "replace" Andy with a new prisoner, whom Andy will then personally take care off after kidnapping him - further claiming that Phelan would observe him committing the crime so that he would never go to the police. Phelan rebuffs Andy's idea, which later causes Andy to despondently contemplate on suicide - which he ends up not going through with. However, Phelan quickly changes his mind when ends up tracking down his ex-business partner Vinny Ashford - whom he seeks revenge upon for the latter conning his share of the money they defrauded from Andy's fellow residents amid carrying out their Calcutta Street scam. Phelan originally planned on signing the house over to Andy so that he could keep Vinny hostage for the rest of his life, under the circumstances that he never set foot on Weatherfield again. After blackmailing Vinny in returning to Weatherfield and repaying him the money he stole from the end of their Calcutta Street operation, Phelan kidnapped him and introduced his ex-business partner to Andy. Before kidnapping Vinny, though, Phelan tells Andy that Vinny is the one who killed Michael. This prompts Andy to confront Vinny over Michael's death, to which Vinny denies being involved in and insists that Phelan killed Michael because the latter was on the verge of exposing the truth about Calcutta Street. When Phelan visits the pair and takes Andy aside for a personal chat, he tells him the original plan of him keeping Vinny prisoner is too risky - but still claims that he'll will let Andy go if he does one last thing for him. When Andy asks what the favor is, however, he is horrified when Phelan tells him that he must kill Vinny to earn his freedom. Though desperate to earn his freedom, Andy is extremely hesitant to accept Phelan's request and tries to change his captor's mind to no avail. Phelan later drives his prisoners to an abandoned warehouse, where he planned for Andy to shoot Vinny dead with a gun - which Phelan obtained to carry out his revenge against Vinny. When Vinny requests to Andy that they work together to escape Phelan and survive what he plans for them, Andy briefly agrees until the moment when Phelan arrives at the warehouse - where Vinny attempts to jump on Phelan and Andy blurts an untimely warning to his captor, allowing Phelan to violently knock out Vinny. After Andy is forced to help Phelan drag Vinny's body into the warehouse, Phelan gives Andy to gun and begins to pressure him in carrying out Vinny's execution by fabricating a story of how Vinny left Michael to die of a heart attack rather than mercifully shoot him dead - further claiming that Vinny relished in witnessing Michael's pain in his last moments. As Vinny slowly regains consciousness, Phelan shouts out at Andy to kill him and Andy finally complies by shooting Vinny - killing him in front of Phelan. A mortified Andy breaks down and turns the gun on Phelan as his captor congratulates him for killing Vinny. Tensions quickly rise between them as Phelan demands that Andy give the gun to him, and Andy refuses. However, Andy eventually complies with Phelan's request and allows him to retake the gun - which Phelan then turns on Andy, who desperately pleaded that Phelan was a good person and wouldn't kill. However, Phelan tells him otherwise and a broken Andy - upon realizing that the end has come for him and that there's no freedom for him - closes his eyes to accept his fate as Phelan pulls the trigger on him, killing Andy with a single bullet. Talking to Andy's corpse, Phelan "apologizes" to killing him - claiming to Andy that he wouldn't be able to ever live with himself as a murder. Both Andy and Vinny's bodies were subsequently thrown into a pond on the site. A few months later, development was being done on the site for new flats, with the plan to drain the pond. A panicked Phelan dragged Andy and Vinny's bodies from their watery graves and filled them with cement for pillars. Despite this, their corpses were eventually uncovered in March 2018 when the pillars were due to be torn down due to Phelan's shoddy workmanship - although Phelan's enemy Gary Windass and former apprentice Seb Franklin were responsible for uncovering the bodies earlier, due to them knocking down the pillars in a bid to find a murder weapon Phelan used to kill Luke; two months earlier, Phelan killed Luke when the latter gradually discovered the truth circumstances of Andy's fate. At the same time, Phelan's crimes were finally exposed when he confessed the extent of his nefarious activities to Eileen - including how he blackmailed and then locking Andy in the cellar of their would-be new house for a year, as well as forcing him to kill Vinny before murdering Andy himself; Phelan also admits that Andy was indeed telling the truth about Michael when confessing to his death, and that he then he killed Luke to cover-up Andy's fate. Following the exposure of Phelan's crimes, Andy was laid to to rest the following month; with family and friends, including Andy's old employer Robert Preston, attending at the funeral to pay their respects to a young man whose life was cut way too short in the most horrifying of circumstances. On the day Robert was due to marry his fiance Michelle Connor in May 2018, Phelan returned to the street and took Michelle hostage after forcing Robert and their wedding guests to help save Nicola - who was shot by Phelan when she attempted to stop him from inflicting anymore harm upon Andy's neighbors. After shooting Michelle when she managed to escape his grasp, Phelan was finally killed when he was mortally stabbed by his rape victim and arch-nemesis: Gary's mother Anna Windass. Before dying, though, Phelan's last-ditch attempt to incriminate Anna for his murder was foiled when Michelle - seeking to avenge Andy's torment and death - promised to say the murder was self-defence and that she would risk imprisonment for her in retribution for Andy's murder. With Phelan's demise, Andy's death has finally been avenged. Personality Hobbies and interests Andy had an interest in creative writing and penned his own short stories. In 2016 he also attended a convention with the theme being the undead, and even dressed up as a zombie for the part. Background information Initially, it was reported that Oliver Farnworth was cast as Gavin Rodwell, the long lost son of Michael Rodwell (Les Dennis) as part of a storyline involving Michael attempting to track him down and lead to "Gavin" making his debut on 21st November 2014. However this proved to be a red herring as it was revealed to viewers on 28th November that "Gavin" was in fact a fraud, although his true name wasn't made known at the time and he was credited as Gavin Rodwell until 14th January 2015. The storyline developed Andy into a sympathetic figure as he bonded with Michael and felt empathy for him, especially as he realised that Michael wanted to make up for abandoning the real Gavin when he was a child. The story paved way for the proper introduction of Gavin (played by Mark Holgate), who appeared for nine episodes in March 2015 before being killed off. In December 2016 it was suddenly reported that Farnworth was departing the series after two years when a report about a brawl at his leaving party was published by the media. Later that month, it was revealed that Tisha Merry, who portrayed Andy's girlfriend Steph Britton, was also leaving the series. In the weeks building up to his "exit", Andy was involved in a feud with local villain Pat Phelan when he rightfully suspected him being a part of the death of Michael Rodwell, with the story seemingly ending with Andy's murder on 20th January 2017. However the "murder" took place off-screen, leaving it ambiguous to Andy's fate. Farnworth returned to the show at a later date and began filming secret scenes for Andy's return, which were kept under wraps by the studio having to smuggle the actor into the set to avoid press attention. Andy's return scenes aired on 18th August, eight months after his apparent murder. The return revealed that Andy had been kept captive in a cellar of a derelict all that time, as Phelan was unable to go through with finishing off Andy after their original confrontation back in January, and saw Andy's several attempts to try and get away and appeal to Phelan's "better" nature. Two months following his return, Andy was permanently killed off on 27th October 2017 in Episode 9286 alongside Vinny Ashford (Ian Kelsey). The scenes received 662 complaints from viewers who deemed it too "violent" and "harrowing" to air, however it was cleared by Ofcom. First and last lines "Hello, dad" (First line, to Michael Rodwell) --- "Because underneath it all you're a good man Pat, and you're no murderer” (Final line) See also *Full list of appearances Category:Coronation Street characters Category:2014 debuts Category:1985 births Category:Nick's Bistro staff Category:Residents of 19a Victoria Street Category:2017 deaths Category:2017 departures